If she hadn’t bought herself the bag of doughnut holes, she would have demolished the entire box of doughnuts before anyone else had gotten there.
Theo walked in right behind Sloane and dove into the doughnut box. He came up with the maple bar that she’d gotten for him.
“You’re a queen among women, Lex.”
“She is, isn’t she?” Sloane picked up the box. “Want me to bring this out to my desk? Need more coffee?” Alexa nodded to both questions. Theo dropped into her office chair as soon as Sloane left.
“Got your email last night. Did you see mine?”
She nodded. She’d seen it at four this morning when she’d woken up and checked her phone. They talked city council strategy as they drank coffee and ate their doughnuts, and argued about whether they could count on Councilman Goode to be on their side or not. The conversation soothed her. This she knew how to do. This she was good at.
Theo reached for her bag of doughnut holes.
“Hey, how was your weekend in L.A.?”
She shook her head. If she said anything to Theo, she might break down again, and work was the last place she wanted to do that.
Well, the last place was probably Drew’s bed at one in the morning with him there to witness it, but work was second to that.
“Oh no, what happened?” Theo asked.
She shook her head again before he could finish his sentence. He reached for her hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back and let go.
“I can’t, Teddy. Maybe later.”
He nodded.
“Okay. But you know that if you ever want to talk . . .”
She nodded down into her coffee. Yes, she did know.
Theo took a deep breath. “Okay, onto another topic that may also be sensitive: have you talked to Olivia about any of the TARP stuff yet?”
Alexa looked up from her coffee. Theo was one of the only other people who knew about the history with Olivia. She’d told him all about it on a drunken night last year, right after they’d both had a terrible day at work and when she was already anxious about Olivia coming to visit that weekend.
“What? No, why?”
He sat back in the chair, crossed his legs and uncrossed them, and sat up again.
“You don’t have to, of course. But I know we talked a while ago about how she might have some ideas that we hadn’t thought of.”
She started to interrupt, but he kept going.
“And also . . . we have all of those personal stories from people who went through programs like this and turned their lives around, and I thought maybe Olivia might be willing to write something up for us, or . . .”
Alexa looked down into her coffee again, gazing into the dark brown liquid like it was Dumbledore’s Pensieve. She knew Theo too well to be fooled by this. He was just making up reasons for her to talk to Olivia about TARP. But maybe he was right?
“I never thought of that,” she said, not looking up at Theo.
He stood up and walked toward her office door.
“You don’t have to, of course. But . . . maybe you want to? I think she’d be pleased to hear you’re doing this. I bet she’d be pretty touched.”
Alexa looked up at him, the tears threatening again.
“Somebody . . . somebody else said that, too. Maybe I will.”
Theo’s eyebrows went up.
“You told . . .” She looked down at her desk, and his voice trailed away. After a minute, he said, “Think about it. It might be good for you to talk to her about it.”
She’d think about it. Maybe Drew had been right about this. Damn him.
Theo was halfway through her office door before she stopped him.
“Teddy.”
He turned around.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For . . . everything.”
“Anytime.”
Friday after work Drew went home and changed into his running clothes. He ran on the beach for ten miles, trying to exhaust himself so much he didn’t think about Alexa, and how he should be on a plane to go see her at that very moment. It didn’t work.
The shameful thing was that he’d already bought a ticket to fly up there that weekend. He’d bought it the day before she flew in for the 4th of July weekend, and he hadn’t canceled it yet. He kept thinking he’d hear from her; he’d feel his phone vibrate in his pocket and it would be a text from her. She’d say she was wrong to leave, she’d missed the hell out of him all week just like he’d missed her. And then he would fly up there this weekend, and . . . but that hadn’t happened.
So he’d canceled his flight right before leaving the office, and now he was even grumpier than he’d been all week. Now it truly felt over.